The invention relates to a light-emitting component having organic layers. More particularly to an organic light-emitting diode according to the generic clause of claim 1. Organic light-emitting diodes, since the demonstration of low working voltages by Tang et al. 1987 [C. W. Tang et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 51 (12), 913 (1987)], have been promising candidates for large-area displays. They consist of a sequence of thin (typically 1 nm to 1 μ) layers of organic material, preferably vapor-deposited under vacuum or applied from solution, e.g., by centrifuging. After electrical contact by metal layers, thin organic layers form manifold electronic or optoelectronic components, such as for example diodes, light-emitting diodes, photodiodes and transistors, whose properties enable them to compete with established components based on inorganic layers.
In the case of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), injection of charge carriers (e.g., electrons from one side or holes from the other side) from the contacts into the intervening organic layers, as a result of an external applied voltage, results in the formation of excitons (electron-hole pairs). The radiant recombination of the excitons allows light to be generated and emitted from the light-emitting diode.
The advantage of organic components over conventional inorganic components (e.g., semiconductors such as silicon, gallium arsenide) is that it is possible to produce very large-area display elements (e.g., Bildschirme, screens). The organic starting materials are relatively economical compared to the inorganic materials (less outlay of material and energy). Furthermore, since these materials require low processing temperature, compared to inorganic materials, they can be applied to flexible substrates allowing a whole series of new applications in illumination and display technology.
The usual arrangement of such components represents a sequence of one or more of the following layers:                1. Carrier, substrate        2. Base electrode, hole-injecting (plus pole), transparent        3. Hole-injecting layer        4. Hole-transporting layer (HTL)        5. Light-emitting layer (EL)        6. Electron-transporting layer (ETL)        7. Electron-injecting layer        8. Cover electrode, generally a metal with low work of emergence, electron-injecting (minus pole)        9. Capsule, to exclude environmental influencesThis is the most general case; usually some layers are omitted (other than 2, 5 and 8), or one layer combines several properties.        
The emergence of light takes place in the sequence of layers described, through the transparent base electrode and the substrate, while the cover electrode consists of non-transparent metal layers. Current materials for this purpose are indium tin oxide (ITO) and kindred oxide semiconductors as injection contact for holes (a transparent degenerate semiconductor). For electron injection, base metals such as aluminum (Al), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca) or a mixed layer of Mg and silver (Ag), or such metals in combination with a thin layer of a salt such as lithium fluoride (LiF) are employed.
For many applications, however, it is desirable that the emission of light take place not towards the substrate but through the cover electrode. Examples of this are displays based on organic light-emitting diodes built up on silicon or plastic substrates (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,736,754 (S. Q. Shi et al.) filed Nov. 17, 1995; U.S. Pat. No. 5,693,956 (S. Q. Shi et al.) filed Jun. 29, 1996), or displays where a textured filter or absorber layer is to be applied to the organic light-emitting diodes (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,137,221 (D. B. Roitman et al.), filed Jul. 8, 1998; C. Hosokawa et al., Synthet. Metal. 91, 3-7 (1997); G. Rajeswaran et al., SID 00 Digest 40.1 (2000)).
The emission through the cover electrode, i.e., the cathode, can be achieved for the sequence of organic layers described above, where a very thin conventional metal electrode is applied. Since this will not achieve any transverse conductivity, at thicknesses exhibiting sufficiently high transmission, an additional transparent contact material must be applied thereon, e.g., ITO or zinc-doped indium oxide (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,703,436 (S. R. Forrest et al.) filed Mar. 6, 1996; U.S. Pat. No. 5,757,026 (S. R. Forrest et al.) filed Apr. 15, 1996; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,969,474 (M. Arai) filed Oct. 24, 1997). Other known structures of this type provide an organic interlayer to improve electron injection (e.g., G. Parthasarathy et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 72, 2138 (1997); G. Parthasarathy et al., Adv. Mater. 11, 907 (1997), partly doped with atoms of metal such as lithium G. Parthasarathy et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 76, 2128 (2000)). On these, a transparent contact layer (usually ITO) is then applied. Indeed, ITO is not well suited to electron injection (cathode), thus elevating the operating voltages of such an LED.
An alternative possibility to provide a transparent cathode consists in reversing the sequence of layers, i.e., making the hole-injecting transparent contact (anode) the cover electrode. However, such an inverted structure, with the anode on the LED, presents considerable difficulties in practice. Metal electrodes exhibiting acceptable transparency must be sufficiently thin, so a closed layer is not formed or the transverse conductivity is not enough to bring about a homogeneous flow of current through the components. If the sequence of layers is concluded by the hole-injecting layer, then the usual material for hole injection, ITO (or an alternative material) must be applied to the organic sequence (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,981,306 (P. Burrows et al.) filed Sep. 12, 1997). This generally requires process technology poorly compatible with the organic layers, sometimes leading to damage. An improvement may be provided by protective layers, but they in turn raise the operating voltage of the component, by increasing the total organic thickness of the layer (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,046,543 (V. Bulovic et al.) filed Dec. 23, 1996; Z. Shen, Science 276, 2009 (1997)).
A more serious disadvantage is that the conventional method of producing the light-emitting diodes requires the hole-injecting anode contact to exhibit as high a work-function as possible. This is necessary because the organic layers are nominally undoped, and hence an efficient injection is possible only if there is as low a potential barrier as possible. To attain low operating voltages and high efficiencies, therefore, it is necessary to perform a specific preparation of the surface of the hole-injecting material (e.g., C. C. Wu et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 70, 1348 (1997); G. Gu et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 73, 2399 (1998)). The work-function of ITO may for example be altered by ionization and/or oxygen plasma treatment, from about 4.2 up to about 4.9 eV. This has a great influence on the efficiency of hole injection and hence on the operating voltage of an OLED. When applying the hole-injecting contact material to the organic layers, these methods of surface preparation cannot be used. As a result, in the case of inverted organic light-emitting diodes the operation voltages are ordinarily a good deal higher, leading to lower output efficiencies (ratio of light emission to electrical output) (e.g., V. Bulovic et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 70, 2954 (1997)).
For the reasons given, there is as yet no inverted structure exhibiting optoelectronic characteristics as good as the corresponding non-inverted structure. Therefore, the operating voltages of such inverted OLEDs are higher and the efficiencies lower compared to OLEDs of conventional layer make-up.
The inverted arrangement permits a simple integration of the OLED with standard driver electronics, such as CMOS technology with amorphous Si-NFETs. Furthermore, the arrangement of the cathode underneath the organic layers has the advantage that it is better protected from environmental influences such as oxygen and water. As is known, this has negative influences on long-term stability, e.g., due to detachment manifestations of the cover electrodes. Since the classical hole-injecting transparent anode material ITO itself already contains oxygen, these effects should be reducible with an inverted structure. Another advantage of the inverted structure is that a very flat semiconductor substrate may be employed, whereas in the classical structure, with ITO as the ground contact, some residual roughness of the ITO is unavoidable. The roughness may lead to pinholes (partial through-contactings), which may lead to problems with long-term stability.
For light-emitting diodes of inorganic semiconductors, it has long been known that highly doped boundary layers can produce thin space-charge zones, which lead to efficient injection of charge carriers through tunnel-effects even if energetic barriers are present. The doping of organic material was described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,698 filed Feb. 12, 1991. But in practical applications, this leads to problems with the energy adequation of the various layers and reduction of efficiency of the LEDs with doped layers. This can be improved by the choice of suitable block layers (e.g., Patent Application DE 100 58 578.7, filed Nov. 24, 2000).